Now the Independent’s schoolteacher/ diarist’s students are like rice. That turns out to be a good thing.
Jan. 5, 2006
So while I had reservations about coming to school today, waking up feeling gross and unhealthy and generally depressed, two small groups of kids —-” without them knowing they did so —-” made my day.
I am an advisor, which means that I follow a group of kids (16 in my case) from the moment they enter our school until the day they graduate. We meet twice a week as a class and talk about community service, college planning, big important problems (like gangs) and small important problems (like how one girl only got to work one day over vacation when she really wanted to work more). We met today, first period this morning. First period on any day of the week is slow and groggy. And so we were all generally in a groggy mood. But it was comfortable. It was kind of like waking up at home and just hanging out with the people you know really well —-” except no one was fighting about cereal or where the remote was. I love my advisees. I came to this school during their sophomore year, so they had their freshman year without me. But we’re such a tight group. They’re comfortable in my room, and I so look forward to having them in there. I think that’s why Brinn’s arrest in my room had me so upset, because it was like my living room with my children there watching.
I tried calling Brinn. Someone picked up and then quickly hung up.
So my day today started off nice and comfortable with the 16 kids who bring me joy and comfort without even knowing they do.
And from then on, my day felt really good and productive. I think I’m getting nervous again for my kids, my 9th graders. They’re about to put on performances at school of The Hot Zone, and my principal has invited ALL New Haven principals to the performance. AND media people. AND lead teachers from other schools. I think it’s awesome that my kids will have such a real audience — but I’m nervous for them. (And for me, too. I know what my kids can do as individuals. I’m asking them to do a LOT in this performance — For some kids, it’s totally maxing them out. I’m protective of them —-” and so proud. I don’t want these strange people to think my kids don’t know what they’re doing because they see Adam mess up a line and get flustered. Meanwhile, they don’t know that Adam doesn’t even talk in class. To have him stand up in front of 70 people and say an original line that he’s interpreted from this humongous book we’ve read is quite the amazing task.) Sometimes I want to hold each of my kids up and shine a light on them and just let them bask and glow in their achievements. I don’t do that enough.
And then the second great thing that happened was a small class of 9th graders totally owned their performance space and words. One girl, Kelly, told me yesterday that she wanted to drop out, and so she didn’t do a damn thing in class. But today, she came in and started to get into her usual routine of slacking off and combing her hair, and I gave her a quick job.
“Write down all the props they use on stage today so we can have a list.”
“What’s —Àúprops’?” she asked.
“Props are all the things that actors need on stage. Right now, there’s a chair and a table and a clock and a mug. Those are props that Frank will need to do his scene.”
Neatly, Kelly wrote down all of the things she saw.
“Miss, do I need to write down that there’s a phone there? And pillows?”
That’s a question that told me she was a little bit hooked. As a teacher, I have to listen to everything, because sometimes they don’t even know what they’re saying when they say it. In that moment, Kelly was telling me she was interested in doing her job.
Later, as Kelly watched the other students perform, I handed her a copy of the script everyone had written. While kids practiced, I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw her reading ahead. When one scene ended, she whispered something to the girl in front of her. The two put their heads close together and planned something.
Kelly stood up with the other girl and announced, “In this scene, I’m Peter Jahrling [a character in The Hot Zone.]” And then she looked over at me. “But only for today. Only for rehearsal today.”
I just nodded, but inside, my stomach crunched because my ears told me Kelly was in.
She read her scene, doing a pretty decent job. But I made a big deal of it. I shined that light on her and told her all the things I loved about what she just did.
At the end of class, she had a little smile on her face.
“So, we have to do that in front of everyone?”
“Well yeah, that’s the idea,” I responded.
“And we have to memorize it?”
“Yeah. But you know, practice paves the way to perfection — You can do it. You did really great up there.”
“Nah, Miss.”
“Yeah, Kelly. Wouldn’t say it unless I meant it.”
And she grinned. A flat out grin.
Yes.
From drop-out to Jarhling in one day.
Yes.
On a totally separate note, I’ve now made perfect —-“and I mean perfect —-” rice two days in a row. While I was living in Providence, my boyfriend at the time always made the rice because I always burned it. And then when I moved to New Haven, I tried making rice once and burned both the rice and the pan, so I gave up. And now, a year later, living on my own, and creating a life for myself, I have made rice twice —-” last night and tonight. It’s awesome. You gotta get the water really hot, then dump the rice in and instantly turn the heat down to almost nothing. Then here’s the secret: you wait. A long time. For good rice, you have to be patient. I used to think that if you turned the heat up a little bit that it would finish faster. I always was impatient. And the rice would always end up little and hard and stuck to the pan and brown and gross. And usually I would throw it away.
Maybe I didn’t understand the rice itself. Of course, in order for it to change shape from a hard little thing into something beautiful and fluffy it would need to take time. It’s not like popcorn where it explodes in a mixture of oil and chemicals in a bag in the microwave under intense pressure and heat waves. Rice needs only water; and it needs to soak up all that water into its tight little casing that’s been dry for a long, long time. All you need is water and time and the belief that if you give it what it needs —-” time, low heat, space —-” it’ll be amazing.
So maybe rice isn’t a totally separate note from school.
(I have to stop these metaphors. I swear I only started writing about rice itself. It was not intended to go anywhere else but rice. But I once had a professor tell me you don’t know what you’re writing about until you actually start writing. So now my students are rice.)